I didn’t look for Marie Kondo, but I can’t escape her.
My News Feed, my views on Netflix, even at the women’s ministry meeting in my church, here it is. It’s as if everyone announced that she had been raised for a time like this. Your mission? The organization of our houses.
- Kondo has released a new documentary based on his organizational process.
- Popularized by his successful international book The Magic of Order: The Japanese Art of Putting Order in His Home and His Life.
- However.
- Their method is not simply to find new storage tricks or stimuli that stimulate annual goodwill donations.
- On the contrary.
- Its appeal is that people move in their possessions article by article.
- Asking a simple question: does this make you happy?If that’s the case.
- Stay.
- If he doesn’t.
- He’ll disappear.
- What could be simpler than that?.
My interaction with the Kondo method was somewhat indirect, I found your ideas through book reviews and your documentary, but mostly through the reactions of my friends and acquaintances looking to implement your tactics, either writing on social media or discussing your process in person. , the tone of the conversation does not sound like an informal office conversation on a controversial reality show; In fact, it reminds me of the concentration and effort of serious amateur runners by comparing our training schedules and the best personal performances.
The immensity of the answer proves that she knows something. Americans are saturated with scattered things. We just left Christmas, which for many of us means trying to figure out where to store our new items when we’re already full of old people.
We all know that ads lie to us, that they sell us products we don’t need with promises they can’t keep. This knowledge is not power. Although our loneliness and discontent remain, we continue to fill these emotional voids with toys. We believe that our business should make us happy, even if all the evidence is far from that. What a strange way to walk according to the faith that Americans live. .
However, we feel that our relationship with things is irrelevant. Isn’t Kondo the first or only person to interact with our intuition here?See the growth of the small house movement? And minimalism?More broadly. But there’s something about his approach that seems to sting.
He didn’t destroy us like a giant tractor, condemning our collector’s tendencies or embarrassing us for what we’ve accumulated, but Kondo asks us to involve our emotions toward our things to free our gratitude for them. Your service to us may be complete, but we can always recognize and be grateful for what you have given us. Shame is replaced by joy, don’t you have that a little bit of the gospel?Going through this process, we are encouraged to be less dependent on our things, less belonging to them. Kondo wants to restore our action in relation to what we have, rather than being controlled by our possessions.
How liberating! It is clear that many of those who use the Kondo method make real profits. Materialism is one of the deadliest plagues in American life, and this method resembles a sturdy sword placed in the hand at the right time.
But while Kondo may have solved a major problem, the movement appears to have uncovered an even more important one. Does a title say “Deceptively Simple Tricks on Cleaning”?Mary Kondo spread the gospel of joy when Americans need it most (NBC). Doesn’t that seem exactly what we need?
Kondo has led many of us to organize our homes, minds and hearts, but it is what we find next, where all our things used to be, that matters most. The problem is that Kondo always asks that our things be the ones that make us happy Just a small part of things.
Yes, it’s against our cumulative trend, which is good. Yes, it encourages us to be grateful people, amen! But when we ask everything if it brings us the right amount of joy, we always think of things as the place of contentment.
Perhaps most importantly, this method of organization could lead us to think of themselves as human beings of exchange. I don’t just want to say that’s Kondo’s intention, but it’s hard not to apply logic in this direction. Consultants and doctors correctly warn against allowing narcissists and other toxic people to abuse us. But if we want our minds to be left alone with what gives us some joy, we are likely to let this mechanism flow in our relationships as well. Is life really about what every thing or person does to us?Feeling?
So what is the right answer for the Christian?Kondo faces a real need, a problem that some of us (but certainly not all) have. Perhaps we can see beyond Mary’s magnetic solution to an evangelical solution. A solution that has imperceptibly hidden in the shadow of a frequently hijacked passage: “Can I do something that strengthens me?(Philippians 4:13).
It is not uncommon to see this verse removed for functions that have not been assigned, such as promising athletic prowess or professional success. However, like all statements, it must be understood in context. In the previous verse, the apostle Paul writes: “I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have abundance. Have I learned the secret of living content in all situations, whether they are well fed, hungry, having much or needy? (Fp 4. 12).
We Americans don’t know exactly how to live in abundance. Not in the sense that we don’t have enough? No, but in the sense that precisely in the midst of abundance, we have lost our way, we do not know how to thrive in abundance. He’s drowning us instead of lifting our boats. There must be a secret to mastering this, instead of letting it dominate us, right?How can we be the richest despite being the most unhappy people of all time?
Part of what is so attractive in the Kondo method is gratitude?Replace our careless and insensitive attitude toward our things with gratitude. Our hearts get numb easily, and then the process of engaging things meaningfully in our daily lives awakens something profound. non-Christians feel it.
However, Kondo’s background and Shinto-influenced worldview cannot adequately provide the fate of healthy gratitude. She shows her gratitude to the objects for themselves, as if they had ears to listen and hearts to receive thanks. Actually, they have no life, in themselves. They didn’t give themselves away. Those present were not designed to receive this valid human response. They were made just to serve as a sign for the donor itself.
When we are rooted in Christ, our abundance is not in what we have more or less, but in who belongs to us, earthly possessions do not simply enter our lives in silence, occupy space, demand conservation and protection, and bind our hearts. We realize that we have less confidence in people, less time for hospitality, less emotional space for God.
Being possessed by Jesus does the exact opposite. As we grew older, we immersed ourselves in an abundance of forgiveness and grace, treasures that were not meant to be collected, but shared extravagantly. When we first seek his kingdom and righteousness, we see our things as gates to worship God and serve others. What if our many things were stolen? As the famous author of Hebrews says: “Why have you also had compassion for my prisons, and you have gladly allowed the theft of your property, knowing that in yourself you have a better and permanent possession in heaven?”(Heb 10. 34).
Kondo says, keep the elements that awaken your joy. Paul says, “Can I do something that strengthens me?”(Philippians 4:13), why can you say first? And indeed, I also have all things as a loss, for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord; Why have I suffered the loss of all these things, and consider them scum, so that I can win Christ?(Fp 3. 8).
Marie Kondo wants us to say goodbye to the things we don’t need, so that we can keep grateful what we already have and wake up our joy, but we know deep down that even the most immaculate folded shirt, as useful organizationally as it is, I really can’t do that. Our most beloved and important trinkets will not make us happy now, nor will they pass through the heavenly gates.
If there is life-changing magic in cleansing, the more power lies in the gospel truth of being possessed by God forever. As for Christ, when the Father looks at us, he rejoices. He’ll never accept us, to the laundry basket. Instead, Jesus promised that in his Father’s house there are many abodes, where he prepares us for an eternal place. With this irrevocable promise, we can sing with an ancient prophet: “Even if the fig tree does not bloom, nor the fruit of the vine?But do I rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the God of my salvation?
Perhaps Marie Kondo’s fashion can awaken us to the treasures we already have in Christ, the greatest exciting joy; better yet, it can encourage us to share wealth.